CBO knocks health care package once again

The Congressional Budget Office on Sunday gave another scathing analysis of the health care bill being considered in Congress, saying that “the probability is high that no savings would be realized by the plan.” Under the CBO’s scoring, the plan would save only a measly $2 billion over 10 years, a minuscule percentage of the $1-2 trillion price tag of the program.

The continued negative analysis has resulted in a kind of war of words between the independent CBO and the White House-controlled Office of Management and Budget, whose director Peter Orszag accused the CBO of a bias toward “exaggerating costs and underestimating savings.” The negative CBO report comes after President Obama invited its director Doug Elmundorf to the White House for a “discussion” after a report that concluded that the health care plan would add billions to the deficit.

Americans of every ideological stripe recognize the need for health care reform. They want the costs of health care lowered, but the bill being worked on by the Democrats does nothing to change the fundamental costs of health care and instead shifts the burden of those costs to the government (i.e. the taxpayers). It’s a losing proposal that merely shuffles money rather than attacking the root causes of health care costs, it’s why the CBO will continue to score the plan poorly, and it’s why the American people are losing faith in the idea of a government-run and taxpayer-funded public option health care plan.